Too Late
by Trini08
Summary: I'll just say this: Faith based fic. that should tell you enough, lol.


**_I cant wait for the new season and i cant wait to get seaon 1 on dvd thursday. Darn school move in day, messed up everything and classes tommorrow. This is just a little something i came up with, was meant to be shorter but it kinda spiralled out of control. Hope you like it. Read and review thanks._**

Sam woke up in the stillness of the new motel room. They had arrived in late last night and had checked in until Sam could bring Dean to the "specialist" the next day. He stretched out on the bed and looked over to see his brother asleep in the next bed. Deciding to let Dean rest a little while longer, Sam left to get breakfast, coffee and maybe a newspaper. It didn't take Sam long to find the continental breakfast this motel had, which consisted of orange juice, coffee and muffins in the main office. He picked up 2 coffees and 2 muffins, bought a paper from the box outside and headed back to the room. Dean was still in bed when Sam came back. He hated waking Dean up because he was always extra cranky when he did, but they needed to get going to get to the faith healer.

"Dean, get up." Sam said, placing the food and coffee on the table. There was no response. So Sam yelled a little louder. "Dean!"

Still nothing. Now Sam was starting to worry. He walked to the edge of Dean's bed and grabbed Dean's shoulder to shake him awake. Sam froze when he realized that Dean's shoulder didn't feel right, it was colder than it should have been. Panic struck Sam, sending tears to his eyes and making him hyperventilate. He grabbed Dean's shoulder and shook him fiercely while yelling his name. After a lack of response, Sam's hand automatically flew to Dean's neck. He searched for what felt like an eternity for a pulse but found nothing. Dean was dead. Sam collapsed on the bed sobbing next to his brother's body. Sam had tried; Sam had found something, someone, who could help and now it didn't even matter. Dean had died before he could even get him to the person who could help. Sam cried until he felt there were no tears left for him to cry, clutching to the lifeless body of his brother before he realized he should call someone. A doctor would have to pronounce him, and then he'd need to have an autopsy and then be buried. No, not buried, cremated, like they'd agreed when they were just kids. Salt and burn the body, no coming back as a spirit. Sam grabbed the cell phone closest to him, which happened to be Dean's, which started him crying again. He dialed 911 and fought back the tears long enough to tell the dispatcher where he was and that his brother was dead before hanging up and throwing the phone onto the floor.

The next days went by in blur. Sam remembered few details except for the fact that Dean's heart had finally given out around 5 am that morning, while they both were asleep. Dean hadn't suffered, Sam was happy about that at least. His brother's life had been so tormented and troubled; at least his death had been peaceful. Within the first 24 hours after Dean's death, Sam had managed to call everyone on both his and Dean's phones who should know. Pastor Jim, Bobby, Missouri. Dad. Sam wondered at first if their father would even get the message, or if he was too busy hunting the demon. Even though the call did go straight to voicemail, John had received it a few hours later and left the hunt and headed straight for his sons. He drove halfway across the country in record time to get to Sam. Sam was a wreck by then, refusing to move from the bed that had once been Dean's. He just lay there clutching to a pillow, crying. Other family friends arrived in the next few days to offer condolences. John greeted them and talked to them for a while each time the visited, but Sam stayed motionless on the bed, every once in a while a sob would wrack his body, but other than that he just didn't move. Sam didn't look at anyone, he didn't talk, he just lay there. As John talked with the family friends, he watched his youngest and his behavior vaguely reminded him of Dean's right after the fire. The only thing that brought Dean out of his reverie of silence was the fact that he felt he had to protect his little brother. Sam didn't have this; Sam didn't have anyone left to protect or to live for. John knew this and he knew that no matter how much he wanted, he didn't fit into either category for Sam. He might be Sam's last living relative, but Dean was more of a parent that he ever was. John glanced at his watch, 10:30. It would take them about an hour to get to the place where Dean had told Sam he wanted to be 'buried'. He walked over to the bed and placed a hand on Sam's shoulder. He didn't even look at him, only nodded, stood and walked out to the car when his father told him it was time to go.

Sam stood in the middle of the field, which happened to be in the middle of nowhere. It was near the place where they had actually spent a whole school year in their childhood. Dean had told him that this was where he would go when Sam and John were fighting and just sit with his music blasting. Alone. Dean liked solitude if he chose it himself; he didn't like it when everyone left him. Sam never understood that, until now. Now Sam wanted to choose solitude, he wanted to be alone, not surrounded by people giving him their condolences. Dean's body lay in front of him, on a neat pile of boards and branches. In Sam's hands he held a container of salt, his father to his right held a bottle of lighter fluid.

"Dean was a good son," John started. "He was a good person and he didn't deserve what this world dealt him. As a toddler, he was more than Mary and I could handle, so full of energy and life." Sam heard John's voice breaking as he spoke. So he placed a hand on his fathers shoulder and spoke from his own heart.

"Dean was the best brother I could have ever asked for. He was always there for me and he did anything to protect me. I can't even count how many times he has sacrificed something to make my life better." Sam said, barely holding back his own tears as he did. "Dean deserved so much more in life than he ever got. He deserved a normal life, he deserved to be happy and safe, but he never got that. And he wouldn't have taken it even if it was a choice either, not until every evil thing in this world was gone. But that's just the person Dean was, he was a giver."

Sam stepped back and let his head fall, tears running down his cheeks. He looked down at the container in his hands, sniffled back the tears and stepped forward again. He whispered apologies to his brother for letting him die, for letting him sacrifice everything for everyone else while he scattered the salt over his body. John stepped forward spraying the lighter fluid along the bottom of the pile of wood, whispering his own words to Dean, his own apologies. Sam paused a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out Dean's favorite lighter. He flicked it into a flame and and tossed it to the ground, when the lighter fluid had been sprayed. The wood and Dean along with it bust into flames. Sam cried out and fell to the ground in tears. Missouri swooped down and held him close as she looked from the fire to John and then to Sam. She whispered to Sam that everything was going to be ok, that he would be ok with out his brother. Sam's only response was to cry and shake his head.

John stood watching his oldest son's body burn, knowing that it was really over. His eyes clouded as tears filled them. This hunt, _his_ hunt, had cost Dean everything from the childhood he deserved to, now, his life. But still, ever the marine, he couldn't show how much pain he was in.

The next few days for them went by slowly; they didn't talk much to each other or anyone else. Friends left and went home to their lives. Sam and John both went their separate ways about a week after Dean's funeral. They both continued the hunt, but Sam chose to hunt in one area and settle down while John traveled the country like he always did. He occasionally stopped by Sam's home near Stilson, GA to see his only son and then later in life to visit with his grandchildren. Sam got married and had three beautiful kids, two little girls and an older son. As they got older, he taught them to hunt like John had taught him. And when they were all grown up, he gave them the choice of school or working with him in the family business, The Winchester Paranormal Investigators. Only once in all the years that followed Dean's death did Sam and John work together on a hunt, when they found the demon. The two of them and fifteen year old Dean, Sam's son, took a road trip to save a family in Kentucky and kill the demon. John was killed during a hunt fifteen years after that hunt and Sam had him cremated and buried next to Mary in Lawrence. Sam lived a full life and watched his children grow up and have kids of their own. He even lived long enough to see his oldest daughter's oldest son get married and have a great grandchild before he died at the age of 92. His children all knew that he wanted to be buried at a place in the middle of nowhere, a place from stories about the great Dean Winchester.


End file.
